My STTNG machine was unfortunately suffering from intermittent reboot issues when I purchased it. I knew about the issue when I bought it, but I got the machine at such a great price that it was worth the risk. I figured it wasn’t anything I couldn’t fix 🙂

Adding to the “fun”, there was a standard computer power supply inside the cabinet in addition to the stock transformer! The PC Power supply was wired to the connector that evidently was intended for J114 on the Power Driver Board.

It was a pretty good guess that the reboot issues lied somewhere in the power driver board. Someone before me had obviously taken a short-cut when trying to fix the rebooting problem. Well, I decided the best course of action was to either refurbish the existing power driver board, or replace it altogether with a new board. Since I don’t really have that much experience desoldering and soldering, and the power driver board is really not the best part to practice on, I decided to get a new board. I went with the Rottendog Amusements WDB089.

Installation was straightforward… First, I removed the translite to get into the backbox.

Then, I simply disconnected every connector from the old power driver board.

You can see I labeled every connector so that I would know exactly where to plug them back in. This ended up being unnecessary, since the connectors will only fit on the board in the correct spot. It was then a simple matter of loosening 6 screws and the board came right out.

Finally here is the new Rottendog board installed. You can also see in this picture that J114 on the lower left is still not connected to anything, and the PC power supply is still wired up. I removed the PC power supply and re-connected J114 properly.

And now the great news – Rebooting issues gone! Another unexpected surprise is that ALL the solenoids on the machine are now way stronger, including the flippers! 😀 It was immediately noticeable and made the machine even more fun to play. Replacing the board turned out to be not a cheap, but definitely well worth it!